We last visited the intersection of 15th & Walnut about half a year ago (from a writing perspective that is – we've probably walked or driven or biked past this intersection dozens of times in the last six months), when renovation work was getting underway at 1501 Walnut St. and construction was still ongoing on the southeast corner. In the time that's passed, as you might expect, there's been some progress.
Remember, PREIT purchased the building on the northwest corner last year and gutted the first two floors. This building had long been home to a collection of small businesses, like a corner store, a tailor shop, and a shoe repair place. With the new ownership, all of those businesses are out and you can see in the image above, an AT&T store is coming soon. The building looks much better, though we're never particularly excited by a new cell phone store.
It turns out that even a huge cell phone store doesn't do it for us. You can see, the new glass box building on the southeast corner is now finished, marking the end of a project we've been keeping tabs on for several years. The first floor has the biggest Verizon store we've ever seen. Hooray. Upstairs is the long awaited Cheesecake Factory. It's hard to believe that, as a city, we survived so long without one. What a relief that our long embarrassment is finally over. As for the third floor, we expect offices at some point. And we're still wishing for another twenty or so stories at this prominent corner. Oh well.
The northeast corner is now seeking a new tenant in the historic Drexel building to replace LA Fitness. Another gym was set to take over the space this summer, but that plan fell through. According to the listing, the 24K+ sqft space runs over five stories and it would clearly be a prominent location for any retailer that wants maximum Philly foot traffic. The listed rental rate is $55/sqft/year, which translates into roughly $110K/month. Perhaps T-Mobile or Sprint could have some interest, and complete the trifecta at this intersection?
Gah, we're gonna be so annoyed when this actually happens.